What If Monthly Giving Became Contagious?
I’m sitting on a plane, thinking about the coronavirus and a movie I watched a while back called “Contagion.” Scary. Totally realistic now!
We’ve become world travelers. We’re on planes, trains, boats, buses, Uber and Lyft rides, etc., all the time.
For this most recent trip, I packed some masks and gloves, and I am wiping down everything possible, hoping to stay healthy. (Whenever I travel, I swear by Airborne, sanitary wipes and hand sanitizer. I haven’t gotten sick yet. Knock on wood.)
I wish the monthly giving “virus” were spreading as fast as in that movie. We’d be much better off.
It’s spreading, but certainly slower than I’d like to see it. One of the best motivators to growing is to give regular updates. How are your efforts going? How are your tick boxes on the reply form and the extra buttons in your emails doing? How many new monthly donors popped up in the past month, and what’s their annual value?
The good news is you don’t need any gloves or masks to protect yourself. You just need to have a system in place to process the gifts. You just need to have the commitment in place to want to “spread” monthly giving around as far as you possibly can. And then you need to be committed to sharing the results and continue stressing the importance of monthly donors for the support of your mission.
You don’t have to quarantine monthly donors and keep them away from other activities, but you do want to keep them separate in your email program and give them some extra attention in your written communication efforts.
Be careful traveling, and let’s see how we can spread the monthly donor virus unlike any other.
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- Monthly Giving
Erica Waasdorp is one of the leading experts on monthly giving. She is the president of A Direct Solution, a company serving nonprofit organizations with fundraising and direct marketing needs, with a focus on monthly giving and appeals. She authored "Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant" and "Monthly Giving Made Easy." She regularly blogs and presents on fundraising, appeals and monthly giving — in person and through webinars. She is happy to answer any questions you may have about this great way of improving retention rates for your donors.
Erica has over 30 years of experience in nonprofits and direct response. She helped the nonprofits she works with raise millions of dollars through monthly giving programs. She is also very actively supports organizations with annual fund planning and execution, ranging from copywriting, creative, lists, print and mail execution.
When she’s not working or writing, Erica can be found on the golf course (she’s a straight shooter) or quietly reading a book. And if there’s an event with a live band, she and her husband, Patrick, can be found on the dance floor. She also loves watching British drama on PBS. Erica and Patrick have two step sons and a cat, Mientje.
